Varus/Strategy
Gameplay By NeeksNaman Varus, the Arrow of Retribution Revealed! Summoners! If you've been wondering what can happen when someone really, truly lets their dark side get the best of them, then look no further than , the Arrow of Retribution. This dangerous combination between caster and ranged carry is equipped with a number of abilities designed to both whittle enemies down from range, and allow him to close in for the kill. The lynchpin in Varus' kit is - a long ranged skill shot attack that damages enemies in a line. Pressing will cause Varus to draw back his bow, reducing his movement speed, but steadily ramping up damage and range (up to a cap) until you left click to select a target. Through creative positioning Varus can either use this skill to pepper enemies with long range attacks or close out a kill on a fleeing enemy with a hard-hitting shot. In lane, Varus' unique combination of abilities gives him the ability to apply constant pressure to his opponent. allows him to both farm safely and damage enemy champions without fear of reprisal. Meanwhile, the area of effect healing debuff from complicates a support champion's efforts to out-heal the attrition damage. When the time comes to move in for the kill, keeps Varus' Attack Speed high while he's last hitting, enabling him to quickly stack up charges from in preparation for a finishing blow. In team fights, Varus' long range allows him to maintain safe positioning until he's able to score a kill on an enemy champion. Once he's picked off an enemy, the massive Attack Speed boost from combined with area of effect crowd control from make him a truly terrifying sight on the battlefield. Champion Spotlight Recommended Items Tips ;Playing As * helps harass enemy champions and get killing blows on minions. * During short range fights it's sometimes best to fire quickly, rather than charging it to full power. * Try to take advantage of very long range to snipe at enemy champions before a fight or as they're trying to flee. ;Playing Against * If you are affected by , abilities will deal extra damage to you. * When he gets a kill or assist, temporarily Attack Speed and is much more dangerous. * You'll get bound in place if a tendril from ultimate, , reaches you. You can cause the tendril to die however by running far enough away from it. Tricks ;Ability Usage * During early laning, it is best for to spec into either one rank of or for his preferred harassment. makes last-hitting much easier and lets him out-damage most carries early on during autoattack exchanges, whereas lets him snipe minions that would be hard to reach and is a superior harass from range. You should spec into if you can reliably get away with going into autoattack range and when you will likely be strongly zoned. * Using while channeling will not interrupt the spell. You can use this to finish off escaping enemies. * During skirmishes, it's sometimes best to fire quickly, rather than charging it to full power - although the ability gains range and damage with charge time, he cannot autoattack as he does so and will likely be sacrificing a greater DPS if he takes too long. * has a distinct sound effect and causes to change stance and slow down while charging it, making it easy to see coming. Try casting the ability from brush to keep the element of surprise. * gains more power and range the longer it is charged. However, the ability does not need to be channeled for the full duration in order to reach its maximum potential. ** The range indicator for the ability will visibly expand once the ability begins to be channeled. Once the indicator stops growing, you will no longer gain any benefit for additional channel time. * Try to take advantage of very long range to snipe at enemy champions before a fight or as they're trying to flee. ** can also very reliably steal buff camps with the ability. Most importantly, he can snipe the from behind its cove wall with it even if it has been pulled out to the river by the opposing team. * When aiming for greatest possible DPS, you should employ strict cadence and fire off an ability after each three autoattacks on an opponent in order to detonate the most stacks. ** Remember that stacks on the enemy will only detonate when connects with one of his other abilities, and all of his abilities have moderately long cooldowns - if you use and to initiate a fight, you will be left without an ability to proc stacks for a short while. ** stacks will last for several seconds before expiring - if you have the chance, you can increase the efficiency of your large-scale attacking even more by hitting multiple targets sequentially and getting stacks on as many opponents as possible before detonating them all at once. * Since both skills scale with AD and are multi-target, can effectively farm large waves of minions instantly late game using only and . He can be an effective pusher late-game if needs be. * is useful for helping you escape from or catch up to opponents due to the slow. It should also be noted that the healing debuff is very strong against champions that have self-heals such as or . * Applying stack of Blight in a short period of time (~ seconds) after landing Hail of Arrows and detonating other stacks will still detonate the stack applied after ' landing, making it possible to detonate total of 4 stacks on single target with alone. * has many uses - it can assist greatly in a gank by preventing the opposing team from fleeing, can cause massive disruption in a teamfight if it is allowed to spread, and can help ensure your own escape when on the run. ** Remember that the disable from the ability is a , not a - ranged attackers and mages can still attack and use most abilities while they are caught. It can be much more effective to target any melee attackers instead, as they will be far more badly affected by the inability to move. ;Mastery Usage * ;Item Usage * is the strongest and most reliable item to rush on when ahead due to the damage, crit chance, and crit damage amplification. can also be rushed when ahead and tends to be best when behind due to the lifesteal and low cost. * benefits more than most carries from : aside from the attack speed and critical strike which greatly increase his overall DPS, the large movement speed bonus it gives him helps to cover his lack of a solid escape ability. is still a strong mid game purchase on . * Building a can be a very useful item on Varus increasing the damage output on his as well as standard auto-attacks. ** is also a very good item as it decreases enemies armor, grants cooldown reduction and health. is a better choice against high armor targets though. * based items can increase Varus's DPS and give him some other stats to help him out: ** passive additional magic damage can stack with and gives him some additional protection against sustained magic DPS. ** gives a high amount of attack speed and applies Blight stacks on up to 3 enemies at once. * can be an unusual but strong build choice for - as he benefits well from all of its stats and passive effects. As an immobile carry like , benefits heavily from the move speed passive of . As well, procs can be consumed immediately after a detonation, giving impressive burst potential. It's important to also note that while procs have a lower cooldown than can reasonably use, he needs to get 3 AA's in between each spell. * Despite primary role as an AD carry, an AP/AS hybrid can be a deceptively effective build in the correct circumstances. This style of play involves usage of the AP ratios on his to deliver respectable autoattack damage and has formidable burst potential from detonations and . ** is one of AP core items - it grants him ability power and attack speed to make use of his , and cooldown reduction is crucial on him to proc detonations of as often as possible. The on-hit magic damage passive of further increases Varus's damage output with autoattacks. ** A can add considerable damage to his burst immediately following a detonation. ** Applying all 3 stacks of and detonating them with results in massive burst damage because of 100% AP scaling. ** To deal with tankier champions it is preferable to detonate 3 stacks of with , apply 3 again and detonate with . The root the ability offers is useful to escape if the enemy managed to take on the full combo and is still quite healthy. ** When following this build it is best to max out . *** Your other 2 basic abilities, and only scale with attack damage, but the latter provides more reliable (faster animation and missile speed) detonations, making it your more preferable ability to max second. *** should only be used to snipe targets afar who got away before being able to detonate, others who escape while you are stacking up for a second detonation or if both your and are on cooldown. *** For you should only charge up the ability if you need the increased range, as the damage scales only on AD so it is insignificant to charge up. If your opponent is nearby, immediately fire. * Alternatively, can be played as an AD Caster mid lane, focusing on heavier poke damage with and to a lesser extent, , rather than autoattacks. ** This build focuses on AD and Armor Penetration for damage, and Mana and CDR for spamming spells. Items such as , , and work well with this playstyle. * Building a or a can also be useful in an AP/hybrid build due to the build's normally distinct lack of any sustain being made up for by the life steal and spell vamp boosts both items provide. However do remember that * With an AD or AP-based build, building a after core items in the late game can be a good idea, given that it provides you with much needed sustain, attack speed and percentage health damage. ;Countering * Avoid being caught by . Fanning out from a caught ally in teamfights will break the tether and minimize the disruption it causes to you. * When Varus begins to charge , he will slow down and draw his bow back. He cannot perform any other action while in this stance and his movement speed is reduced, so take advantage of this time to juke the shot or close the distance on him. * lacks the mobility that many other AD carries possess, which means he is more vulnerable than most to errant crowd controls and gank attempts, and also means he has trouble fleeing from diving champions in teamfights. A single root can be a death sentence for him. ** Much like the case of who also lacks mobility but compensates with very high steroids and nukes benefits from one of the highest burst among all marksmen and extremely long range damage. As his burst depends on skillshots keeping yourself constantly on the move will keep you safer. * ' lack of mobility mechanics also means he can have difficulty avoiding skillshots. Being a skillshot-based champion himself, he also has difficulty with mobile champions like , , or as they all have the means to dodge his spells. * Once Varus has used and , he will be unable to detonate stacks for several seconds. It may be a good idea to engage him after you see him use those two abilities. * Being hit by reduces your champion's healing and regeneration, so save any healing abilities until you have exited the desecrated zone. * Although can be very disruptive to many champions, neither it nor any of other abilities will interrupt channels. Champions with powerful channeled abilities such as and can freely cast their abilities without fear of having their channels discontinued. * only deals damage once on impact. When fighting 1v1, don't be afraid of standing inside the Desecrated Ground unless the reduced healing/movement speed will significantly hurt your capabilities. * Watch out for when fully charges it, especially if you have several stacks of , as you will receive formidable damage. * becomes more dangerous after he has scored a kill. If time and positioning permits, it is wise to let his passive attack speed bonus wear off before reengaging on him. ** During the laning phase, wait for his bonus attack speed from killing a minion to wear off before committing to a skirmish with him. Doing so while his bow glows can be a dangerous maneuver, as in tandem with , can quickly out-trade most other autoattacking champions. ** In teamfights, it is easy for to obtain a great attack speed bonus for scoring a kill or assist, signified by his bow glowing a light . As a teamfight often does not allow a team to quickly disengage to let this bonus wear off, it strongly encourages good positioning and teamwork to avoid any deaths letting snowball his advantage. * If builds ability power, he suffers under an extremely weak early game as he has no real damaging ability besides 's passive. As the game proceeds, however, he will slowly but surely become very dangerous since belongs to the strongest sources of % health-damage in League of Legends. It is highly advised to take him down immediately after a teamfight starts. ** This is even more important when he possesses a , as he can continually stack onto your whole team and trigger it with or just his basic spells, dealing high percentage numbers of everyone's maximum health as magic damage. However, he has to stay in attack range to do this, which makes him an easy target for burst spells. ** In a lategame 1v1, avoid his under all costs. The spell has a 1:1 AP-scaling and applys 3 stacks of during the root. Squishy characters are very likely to be one-shot just by the ult damage and the triggered Blight stacks. References Category:Champion strategies Category:Varus de:Varus/Strategie